Michigan Affirmative Action Ban

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Affirmative action is a tool used to admit students into college based on their race as an effort to level the playing ground for underpriviledged minorities and to diversify America’s universities. It has always been a controversial topic because of its labeling as racial profiling because students are being admitted into schools because of their race – not their merit.

In January, 2007, Michigan joined Texas and California as the third state to ban affirmative action as a tool for admintance in its colleges and universities. Although affirmative action is starting to be seen more as a racial profiling rather than as a tool to diversify schools, the University of Michigan has fiercly fought against the ban since its inception years ago. The school claims that one of its major goals is the diversification of its university to ready its students for the cross-cultured workplace that they will be entering upon graduation. The school still claims that it wishes that it could use affirmative action, but it will not try to overturn the initiative that was overwhelmingly passed by Michigan’s voters, like they claimed they would do months earlier had the initiative passed.

If the University of Michigan is truly worried about losing their diversified campus because the freshmen that are being admitted come from well funded communities that happen to be predominitly white, then they should help the state of Michigan to form a plan to help the minorites in poorly funded communities succeed more in high school so they can earn admittendence into their school based on academic merit, not because of the color of their skin.

Hopefully, other states that still allow affirmative action will see it for what it truly is – racial profiling – and other initiatives like the one in the state of Michigan, all students, of every race can have a fair shot at being admitted into college.

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